Watching The Past To Save The Future
by Stannis is the one true king
Summary: It has been a year since Barry Allen vanished in a battle with Eobard Thawne, and the Justice League has begun to collapse. Batman, Green Lantern and Cyborg have devised a plan, to save their future and the lives of their fallen friends, to bring their friends from 2012 to 2025 and watch Arrow, Flash, Supergirl and Legends to save their future, to save the League. Read opening note
1. The Plan

_This fanfic will be updated sporadically I'm afraid, due to a focus on other things. I just didn't want to let it gather dust and never get published. I will update as often as I can, but it will be low on the Fanfiction priority list until some of my other works are complete._

 _I want to say now, this is meant to be an AU universe of my own Scarlet Speedster fanfic, so some of the events I mention throughout this fic, WILL occur within TSS, so consider yourself spoiler warned. I won't mention which obviously, but some will be._

 _The Watchtower, 2025_

It was a busy day in the Watchtower as the Justice League prepared to head off to combat another threat. The date was April 25th 2025, and the Justice League was in crisis mode, due to one very important event. The Flash, Barry Allen, was gone.

"Check it again, Victor!" Called Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern, Cyborg and Batman poured over the footage of Barry's battle with Eobard Thawne from exactly one year before, and checked for any signs of his re-emergence, anywhere. The two speedsters had been in what appeared to be one of their fiercest battles yet, before they both vanished in a bright flash of light. When the light cleared, they were gone, and nobody had seen them since, no cameras has picked either of them up, they were simply…gone. They had devoted most of their time over the past year to try and find Barry, no matter what they did though, he was gone.

"I've tried everything, Hal, multiple times. I don't know what to look for or where to look." Cyborg protested. They'd tried everything. Victor was at a loss for what they could do. They needed to find a way to bring Barry back, and fast.

With The Flash having vanished, metahuman and regular criminals had reappeared from the woodwork, sensing the speedster was gone, and with the Justice League unable to watch over Central City permanently as well as their own cities, and within a matter of months, Central City's crime rate had spiked, and whenever the Justice League appeared to restore order, as soon as they left the criminals came out and terrorised the city once more. They couldn't keep going like this, they needed to get The Flash back and protect Central City once more.

/

"We can't give up." Hal stated as Bruce shook his head. Barry was gone, they needed a way to fix this and fast. Standing up, he headed towards the main conference room.

"Where are you going?" Hal called after him. They couldn't give up looking for Barry now.

"I'm going to speak with the others. We need more help, or we need to formulate a plan." Bruce stated. "Wally alone cannot hold Central City, we need a contingency."

"What do you have in mind?" Cyborg asked him, also standing from his computer. If the Justice League was going to convene, they needed to all be involved.

Bruce spared him a glance.

"I've got an idea, but you might not like it."

"Why wouldn't we like it? If it can bring Barry back and restore order, I'm all for it." Hal stated.

"So am I." Cyborg interjected.

"Very well. We don't need to rescue Barry if we never lose him." Bruce stated.

"What?" Both Cyborg and Hal asked him, as if the Bat had lost his mind.

"You're talking about time travel, you know how dangerous that is." Hal stated.

"Do you see any other way?" Bruce asked. "I don't like the idea of messing with time myself, but ever since Barry disappeared, the League has been struggling, it is as if the spirit of the league itself has disappeared with Barry, we've already had some heroes leave us, such as Green Arrow and Aquaman, how long before you think the League will begin to think, if we let this one city fall, we can save another?" Bruce asked them as the two other heroes stood there in silence. Since Barry vanished, everything had gone downhill.

"If we can stop Barry from vanishing, then the past year, and everything awful within it, will be just a bad nightmare." Bruce continued. "I have an idea on how to save it."

"How?" Cyborg asked.

"This, all of this, started thirteen years ago with Oliver Queen becoming the Hood. We could stop any of the mistakes of the past and secure a better future, a brighter future, for the people of the world, if we show where we went wrong and correct it."

"If we correct the past though, won't that end this timeline?" Hal asked, shocked Bruce would suggest changing the past beyond just going back a year and stopping Barry from fighting Thawne.

"If we can stop all of the heartache, all of the madness, we can not only spare lives, we can make sure the Justice League becomes greater than it is, does more. The battle with Brainiac three years ago, the battle against Darkseid back in 2018, how much better would they have gone, how many more would have survived, had we had additional help, more heroes?" Batman asked. He hated the idea of changing the timeline himself, but if it was a way to save his loved ones, and the loved ones of his friends, he'd suggest the idea to the League. They'd hold a vote and if needed, they'd save all of those lives.

/

"So, Batman proposes we take the younger selves of some of our friends and show them what lies in store for them, their future, our past, so they can change it enough to save the lives of those we've lost, so we can stop villains easier and with less lives lost, with the ultimate goal of saving the League by stopping Barry from disappearing."

The rest of the League took in Superman's words and thought over it. They could save the lives of many people, and Batman was right, the League was dying, slowly, but surely, with every resignation, every death, it got closer and closer to collapse. Did they have the right to do it though? To change the timeline, save people, possibly condemn others. Would Barry have wanted them to change the past to save their future?

"I vote Yes." Batman stated. "You know if I support such a measure, that we are in dire need of it."

"I vote No, we cannot play at being gods." Superman stated.

"I also vote no." Wonder Woman stated.

"I support Batman." Hal chimed in.

"As do I." Cyborg stated.

"Kara was my friend, and what happened to her, I never want to see happen again. I support this." J'onn Jonzz stated as Superman winced. Kara was _his_ cousin after all.

"Look, I would do anything to stop some of the past from happening, but I don't believe we should alter these events, I mean, what if we stop ourselves becoming heroes due to it? I vote No." Ray Palmer stated.

"I vote Yes." Sara Lance spoke up, everyone knowing why she'd be willing to change the past.

"I also vote yes." Zatanna stated. "I do not wish for all of our friends to have suffered and for the world to suffer due to it in the future."

"I could go for saving the day, and besides, I miss Oliver and Barry being here. No-one to hustle." John Constantine chipped in his support as Diana frowned at him.

"It's too risky, I don't think we should do it." Nightwing stated.

"I won't lose my friends." Wally simply stated, nodded his assent.

"They'd do the same for us." Jax Jefferson stated as Martin Stein agreed with him.

"Let's bring Red and the others back, we need them if we're to stop this thing from going to hell." Mick Rory stated.

"I have to disagree with this, we fought to protect time, remember?" Kendra asked her fellow Legends before Carter added his agreement, adding two more votes to the No camp.

"I also vote No." Rip Hunter's voice stated.

"Rip, we changed history all the time to save the day." Jax protested.

"You need to consider all of your options before anything like this is even considered and even then I'd still say it was a bad idea. I know more than any of you the dangers of upsetting the timeline." Rip curtly supplied, adding another voice to the No camp.

"Well, that appears to be all of us." Superman said shortly, realising the motion was going ahead anyway. The League members dispersed until it was only the core members once again.

/

"Now all we need to do is decide who needs to come here and what they need to know." Wonder Woman stated.

"If we're changing everything, I think we need everyone and we need to start at the beginning." Hal stated.

"I'm not sure about everyone, but at the beginning I agree with." Batman stated.

"Who wouldn't you bring?" Wonder Woman asked Bruce.

"I would only bring the younger versions of the Legends, Oliver, Barry, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, Thea, Roy, Laurel and Diggle from this Earth. I'd also bring in Kara and Alex from our original Earth." Bruce supplied, since the two worlds had merged following the event that the League referred to as the Crisis on Infinite Earth's, they had simply called it Earth, having no need to number the worlds now the multiverse had dropped to one universe.

"I'd bring in some of the others too." Hal suggested.

"Such as?" Superman asked.

"We know some of their friends who weren't heroes are the way they are, or some of their villains could have been saved and made into valuable allies, had they seen the folly of their ways."

"You're not suggesting we bring villains in, are you?" Batman asked, shocked at such a thing.

"Well from the year 2012, they'd be minor villains at best, they wouldn't be world ending threats or whatever they became." Hal protested.

"It's worth a shot, if we convince them that what they're doing is wrong, it could lead to more allies, or at least less enemies in the future or past, however you look at it." Victor supplied.

"I agree with Hal and Victor." J'onn stated. "If we can turn some of our foes into friends, it may save us a lot of trouble later on down the line. Besides, from the time we're bringing them, they won't know they're our foes in this timeline."

"Ok, who do you suggest?"

"Malcolm Merlyn, Tommy Merlyn ( _Tommy is Prometheus in this world since I'm sure he is in the show),_ Iris West and Joe West, because we need someone to verify that Barry's father was innocent for when they return to 2012 in the end." Hal suggested.

"I agree." Cyborg stated. "Those guys would be our best bet."

"It is sound reasoning when you think of what they all became and why it would be best to remove a few threats." Batman admitted.

"I can get behind that." J'onn supplied.

"Oh, alright." Superman stated, seeing they were not going to win this one either.

"Unanimous decision then." Wonder Woman stated as they went to prepare for the arrivals of their many guests from the past.

'I just hope this decision doesn't come back to haunt us.' Every member of the League thought as the first of the arrivals from the past began to arrive.

As the first of the time travellers arrived in the teleporter, Superman went to greet them.

"Oliver Queen, welcome to the Watchtower."

 _I'll be updating this fic as I do my "Pokemon characters watch" fic, in which I'll use some dialogue from the show, but it'll largely be just the characters reacting and discussing what they've seen, since it's less time consuming for me to write, you to read and the people who go around saying "Characters watching or reading fics are banned" have less of a complaint and so don't ruin this for everyone._


	2. Nooo

Hey guys, not an update, though some are coming for some of the stories in the next few days and weeks. Just a question.

Right, some of my stories, such as Fifty Shades of Supercorp have been wildly more popular on AO3, whilst some, such as The Scarlet Speedster, have had a much better reception on FFN. So, I'm considering whether or not to have some stories exclusively on one platform and some on the other.

I will be running a poll to decide this, both on FFN and on my Fanfiction Twitter account.

Check 2050_official on Twitter to vote on the poll or search "StannisIsTheOneTrueKing" on FFN.

The poll will run for three days, starting from the publication of this note on all of my Arrowverse fics.

I hope you all had a good Christmas/Hannukah/etc and I hope you all have an amazing New Year


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